Tuesday was a day to familiarize ourselves with Dalyan town. We had to find ATM’s and a store where we could get a decent price on sundry goods like water, beer, snacks, etc. Uncle Cliff had to find the post office from which he could buy a phone card and then figure out how to use it. That took a couple of days and attempts to contact his wife Ruth since the instructions on both the phones and cards were in Turkish only. He eventually got through but had to leave messages for two days before he finally reached her on day 3.
After a fair amount of walking around town and a delicious lunch of Turkish pancakes, we walked back to the hotel to hit the pool, cool off, and freshen up. After that it was nearly time for happy hour. We have been doing that partly at the pool bar and partly behind our rooms enjoying some gin that that the folks brought in en route from Wales. The hotel frowns on bringing in your own booze and food so we try to keep it low key and not party down from our own supply at the pool. That is kind of a downer but what can you do?
We walked back into town for dinner at a place that had riverside seating and a view of the Lycian tombs carved into the mountain across the river. The setting was great and the food very good as it has been for the whole trip thus far. I have to admit that my legs are bothering me from being out of shape, nerve or hip damage, and water retention. The last walk home of the day from Daylan is usually not too fun and still pretty warm.
Fortunately the AC works fine in the room I am sharing with Cliff. He has the downstairs room with a double and I have a single upstairs. It is nice to be able to retreat to the AC after a trip to town or sweatfest around the pool. I have to admit to not spending much time in the room other than for sleeping. The days have been busy and, the heat notwithstanding, it is nicer to be by the pool, the river, or the bar. Fortunately, despite the time change (7 hours), I have slept pretty well. I usually get a power four or five hours and then toss and turn a bit before getting up.
I arrived in Istanbul from Washington, DC, at about 1630 local. We parked on the tarmac and disembarked onto buses to the terminal. Terminal services were generally good but I definitely recommend going to the second visa point which is about 100 meters past the first. The line was only about 20 people vice 200 in the other. The walk was well worth it.
After that, beware of getting in the passport line for Iraqi’s only and then be sure to get into the non-Turkish nationality line. Processing was fast, efficient, and generally friendly. Customs was non-existent. Of note, I was surprised to find that someone filched my Turkish phrase book along w/ 5 crips U.S. twenty dollar bills from my backpack which I left stashed in the overhead on the airplane.
I had shuttle service from the airport to my hotel which was convenient….dude was waiting for me with a sign at the arrivals area! The drive into Sultanamet was mostly along the shore of the Marmara Sea which was nice. On the shore side were mostly parks and eateries. The trip took about 30-45 minutes.
Upon arrival, I checked out the room which is nice albeit small. It has AC, Wifi, TV, mini-fridge, and a terrace w/ a reasonable view of the Bosporus Straits and, on the other side, the Asian side of Istanbul.
So I settled into my room and headed out about 1830 or so. I walked around and caught glimpses of Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, and the Hippodrome. In the process I got roped in by a couple of rug merchants which was annoying in a way but interesting in other ways. It was cool to talk to the people get a feel for their schtick.
I ended up hanging out at the Sultan Hostel and Restaurant which had good tunes on the stereo and soccer on the wide screens. Most of the crowd was into the football, Spain vs. Portugal, which did nothing for me. I was drinking Efes Pilsen, which at about 7 TL for a 16 oz glass, was quite tasty and reasonably priced. I chatted up a few Malaysian college dudes, two of whom were going to school in Cardiff, Wales, and one of whom was going to school in Melbourne, Australia. They were interesting chaps. We shared a hookah which I paid for. They were on tight budgets and also, since they were Muslim, they were not drinking.
I was worried that there would not be any night life in this district but that does not seem to be the case. There is a street full of bars and restaurants right around the corner from my hotel and all the prices seem reasonable. It is definitely a lower rent district w/ lots of backpackers but works for me. Plus it really sucks sitting on my balcony overlooking the Bosporus straits enjoying a cool breeze, a beer, and listening to some tunes…wrong!
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Today did not end up exactly as I planned. Oddly, I woke up and got out of bed at shortly after 0600 which is about 2300 back home. Probably powering down a few Efes Pilsens after having half a leftover sandwich at about 2215 DC time, breakfast on the plane before we landed at 1630 Turkey time, and nothing thereafter to contributed to an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Thankfully the Turkish music that seems to start up at afternoon prayer behind the hotel had stopped.
So again I am sitting on the rooftop terrace of my hotel with the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia looming over me. It is about 1730 and reasonably comfortable out of the sun with the breeze blowing off the Marmara Sea. I can see a few of the Prince’s Islands and the the far shore beyond them. Gulls are flying around at eye level laughing and pooping their asses off.
I ended up taking a Bosporus Straits tour which as nice but not as good as I think it could have been. We only went up to the second bridge on the straits and did not stop for lunch as I expected. Considering we left at 1130 or so, lunch would have been nice. I went on the recommendation of Erdal who is one of the hotel managers. He said it would be good because two others from the hotel were going.
I am not positive but I think the two others, who were Swiss females, were a couple. That bothers me not at all but they didn’t have a word to say to me or anyone else on the trip. I did sit next to a Greek woman on the bus to the boat who was funny and interesting. She was with a guy. I don’t know whether they were married or not but when I offered to switch seats so they could sit together, she said she was okay and could use a break from him. We had a nice chat on the ride. I would have enjoyed meeting her under different circumstances.
I am not sure what we were supposed to do when we disembarked from the boat but I ended up following some people to the Spice Market which was pretty cool. What wasn’t cool was that I was loaded up with camera gear and paranoid about getting ripped off. It is probably less of an issue than the tourist guides make of it but you can’t be to careful.
I’d like to pick up some noshes for Dalyan and also some tea, preferably Iranian. I am not sure it is worth going back the market for that though. I hoofed it back from there sans map which was interesting. It is pretty hard to get lost in Sultanahmet though. It is a peninsula w/ a hill in the middle of it on top off which sit two huge mosques.
This morning I enjoyed quite the nice free Turkish buffet breakfast on the roof terrace and chatted up some folks who were here from Portland, OR, with their young boys. Traveling to Turkey from OR with children surprised me a bit. After breakfast at about 0900, I still had plenty of time to walk to Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and take some outdoor pictures prior to our 1030 departure for the Bosporus Straits trip.
Now I am watching a gull walk on the clay tiles of the roof next door. Web feet don’t do squat for walking on flat, angled tile. It is pretty funny watching it slide down the roof.
There are cats around here everywhere. I don’t know if they are feral but they definitely don’t seem to be domestic cats. I have been watching three down below me in a dumpster browsing for chow. And another one has joined the fray.
I really need to focus on my core site visits in the next two days. Tomorrow is the Muslim holy day which potentially puts a damper on visiting the mosques which are three out of four of my must sees. If the mosques are all closed, then going to Topkapi Palace will be a zoo. Sunday the Grand Bazaar is closed, how strange, so I have to fit that in in the next two days.
I have to reiterate that my room is small. It has two twin beds in it and getting around the room is hard enough for one person that I can’t imagine sharing it w/ someone else. Still, for $60 US a night in within walking distance of almost everything I want to see, I can’t complain. And who goes on vacation to hang out in their hotel room anyhow? I have this wonderful rooftop terrace to hang out on and a myriad of places to get something to eat and drink w/in a five minute walk.
More tomorrow hopefully! On a last note though…if Dalyan is anywhere as nice and relaxing as my location in Istanbul, the trip can only get better!
These pictures are from last year but I never posted them. My brother-in-law’s friend came down for the weekend from Vermont and somehow he and Ed and I wound up at Mt. Vernon…George Washington’s residence in Alexandria, VA, on the Potomac river, in case you wanted to know. George’s dead so we didn’t see him.
Somehow, someone decided that the way to get to Mt. Vernon was down Rt. 95 south from Washington, DC. After a wonderful tour of 95 and Rt. 1, which we eventually ended up on, someone, I won’t say who, figured we probably were not going to get to Mt. Vernon the way we were headed. So we turned around and revisited the beauty of Rt. 1 with all it’s car dealerships and sundry, sordid businesses out to take a serviceperson’s money. With Fort Belvoir and the Marine base, Quantico, in the area there was plenty of money to be made from the naive and unsuspecting serviceperson.
Anyhow, the whole reason for this post was to note that I had posted pictures from Mt. Vernon taken nearly a year ago. Follow this link or the links under my Photography section on the right side menu bar.
It was in the high 70’s today in Northern Virginia…March 13. Give me a break. If these temperatures continue into the summer we are in for a scorcher. I for one am not looking forward to it. I just got home at 2230 and it is 80 in my apartment. I have only had the heat on for two days out of the whole winter. I should have my AC on!
Speaking of getting home from work…. It was another day at the mercy of the customer who is heedless of the support staff’s personal obligations and lifestyle. Accordingly, my day went from a predictable 8 hours to 11.5. I just love leaving the office at 2130 w/o having had dinner or a significant break all day. I guess that is the price I pay for having a job in a society where the top 1% beats the rest of us into the ground and tells us we should be happy.
To cap it off, we fight hideous traffic in our commute. If you try to work a bit of flex time, you have to fight the highway construction in the area. Flex time in this area means leaving for work no earlier than 0900 and going home before 2230 or after 1930. But no matter how many lanes the state adds to the highway, there is always some bottleneck that makes all the expansion basically worthless.
To make things even worse, most of the highway work around here is for new toll roads along side the normal byways. As such, the 1% can pay their way away from the madding crowd and theoretically avoid the traffic jams. Meanwhile Juan, the landscape engineer and his household maintenance technician wife. Juanita, along with the rest of us can fight the traffic jams.
Well, it is after 2300 and time for me to finish my after work beer and get some dinner! Midnight snacks were never this good!
I started my new position 3 weeks ago so I am now in my fourth week. I am not thrilled. We spend too much time in meetings and I am now having to commute for three months to a location that is far enough away that it sucks at least 1 more hour out of my personal time than it does to commute to the location that I signed up for.
Without going into the details for the sake of keeping my job, I got a promotion. I lost the differential time I got for working nights when I could actually get some work done. I now spend at least 1/2 my working week in meetings. Therefore I and those of whom I attend the meetings with are probably in the same boat getting 1/2 the work done they’d like to get done.
Pulling in to my apartment complex tonight I got blocked by a van in front of me. The driver got the front wheels over the first speed bump but seemed to have a problem getting the back wheels over it. Now take into consideration that we had a wintery mix going for about 30 minutes w/ an accumulation of perhaps 0.2 inches. It was a moderately sized speed bump so of course I wasn’t surprised that the dumb ass had to stop before he tried to take his rear wheels over that Mont Blanc of an obstacle.
I figured he was going to get out and put on the snow chains but he was wise to that realizing that putting them on the rear tires of a front wheel drive van would have been pointless. Accordingly, he put his vehicle in reverse probably figuring to return back over the speed bump, put the chains on his front tires, and then motor his way over the speed bump using his chained front tires to pull both front and rear wheels over it like Hannibal crossing the Alps.
Dumb ass…I passed on the left and pulled into my parking spot. I was a bit breathless from the high altitude when I got out of my car and had to wade soul deep through the “wintery mix” to get to my lofty, snow graced apartment but after a strenuous 30 seconds was able to successfully make my way to warmth and safety. Thankfully, I did not get stranded in a “wintery mix” drift and have to chew my arm off and drink my urine to survive.
Saturday the temperature reached a high of 68. Yesterday, Monday, it was 40 and snowing in Centreville when, at at 1:20 PM, I headed off to work in Ashburn 10 miles away to the north. It wasn’t snowing there but apparently it had been. There was hardly any accumulation though. There was about a half inch to one inch on the ground at home when I returned from work…nothing on the road thankfully. It has been too warm.
I think Lionel Ritchie said it best. Oh what a feeling! I just got off what should have been my last regular mid-watch in my old position at Lockheed. I start my new position tomorrow. That’s going to be a bit rough…going back to mostly day working after nearly eight months of working 12 hour mid-watches. Oh, the sacrifices we make… Oh, the footprints on the ceiling!
Today I had my second paddle on Lake Prince and it was as enjoyable as the first. There are a few very nice houses on the lake but not so many as to make it feel too civilized. I saw two Piliated Woodpeckers, a number of Belted Kingfishers, Canadian Geese, Double-breasted Cormorants, 3 or 4 Bald Eagles, one of which sat in a tree and preened himself while I watched and ate my lunch, and numerous Mallard ducks.
The weather was crystal clear but at this time of the year it seems like the sun is always going down so, with the breeze, it was a bit nippy but still comfortable paddling. Lake Prince is definitely a spot I will return to. Unfortunately, I left my cameras at Kim’s, thinking they were still in the car, so I don’t have any new photos of the lake.
It is done. I have officially, according to my body, moved over to the dark side. Nearly seven months of working midwatches 1800 – 0600 have taken the toll. I now officially sleep during the day, even on my days off, and have to wear suntan lotion when I go out into the light so I don’t waste away like an errant Dracudude.
Ironically, today my promotion takes affect. The position is a day job M-F if you ignore the on call duty required occasionally. Sadly, I am still on the schedule for midwatches until we get some new bodies trained to flesh out the watch schedule. If all goes well, I will be off the watch and into my new position just in time to have to retrain my body to get used to working days instead of nights.
